Fez developer has realised that his XBOX exclusive deal was a shit idea

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If you reckon that it costs at least £10K for someone to live for a year BEFORE they spent money on computers, software, licensing etc. - and that MS are likely taking at least 30% (after sales tax of course) - 5 years of making a game leaves you needing to make

£50K / 70 * 100 * 1.2(*) = just under £86K!!!

As for takings - 800pts (which we'll call £6 for the sake of being nice) means 14333 copies have to be sold - they reckon Day 1 sales are often half the total you'll sell (at full price) and SMB did almost 20K (twice what Braid did) wheras Fez has been called "not as high a grosser as earlier titles but successful" so we'll assume first day sales in the high thousands would be about right (MS view 5,000 as 'successful' apparently) so ,maybe. - just ...

He did get some funding years back BUT he also wasn't working along which DOUBLES his those costs - and he's had to pay for other stuff (lawyers etc.) - offices - exhibition space etc.

I don't think people grasp how much it costs to develop a game - one of my little mobile games, even at minimum wage, would have cost a couple-of-grand to produce (yes, I do it for love!) :)

(*) 15% Sales Tax is less than the UK rate and more than most US rates...

Meh. I'll wait for the reviews. If the games good then I'll buy it. If it sucks shit I won't. My understanding is it's a love letter to old console games of old, however given I have almost zero console legacy that nostalgia loving is lost on me.

It's two games. One is an average platformer with a single interesting mechanic. The other is a hugely complex puzzle game that slowly arises out of the platformer, but can also be ignore. They don't fit well together. It's odd.

I call "by the time Microsoft have taken their cut and by the time you've paid off everything that needs paying off for 5 years worth of development, you're lucky if you've got enough left to buy some cat food".

But nobody talks about these bits of dev because why would you? Devs just write games, people just want to play games. Console deals can be massive money spinners but the Trials 2, Minecraft etc... are few and far between now.

Bingo

This is what was pissing me off when people were screaming about Penny Arcade abusing Kickstarter because all their money was going to operating costs. They didn't seem to realize that said operating costs were where video game money was going too. Or with the Defense Grid people.

That's a big problem Indie studios have in general. THey basically have to make the game out of pocket, and hope that sales will pay it off. But, they also have to hope that said sales will fund their NEXT game. Because gamers start expecting things and say "But they made so much money off the first one, why did they have trouble making the second one?"

Which is really the big advantage the publishers have. During the late 90s/early 00s, EA could fund actually interesting experiments because they were making so much money off franchises and The Sims. If Spore had failed horribly, they could have absorbed the loss. ALthough, the shift to reliance on AAA games mean that the margin for "error" is much lower these days.

Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.

I don't think the Minecrafts are the "one offs". While minecraft was a surprise success, it was made by an experience programmer, a games programmer at that. Second, he released free Alphas (you know, like not paid for which loads are doing now), and paid for Betas, and kept the prices low.

That and it's a large scope creative game verses a, comparably shorter play time of a narrative game. Thus people tend to price their custom likewise. Paying $10 or $20 for MC is a bargain for most. Paying $10 for braid might be more difficult. While Braid is worth that price (I forget what I paid :D), it's got to compete with everyone else, or be happy with it's small cut.

Aim not lower, but simpler I guess. Like MC being made in JAVA and 16bit style textures. While at the same time aim for real quality, like the narrative and voice work in Bastion. :)

It's two games. One is an average platformer with a single interesting mechanic. The other is a hugely complex puzzle game that slowly arises out of the platformer, but can also be ignore. They don't fit well together. It's odd.

This is what was pissing me off when people were screaming about Penny Arcade abusing Kickstarter because all their money was going to operating costs. They didn't seem to realize that said operating costs were where video game money was going too.

No, we didn't agree with it because it was effectively a perpetual thing. A game has a finish date. PA got round that by putting an arbitrary 12 month date on it while being up-front that they'll be back for more. The issue that people like myself raised was that nothing was being Kickstarted with PA, it was just funding the operation of an already incredibly-well established webcomic and community.

We all know that Kickstarter money goes in part to operation costs but that goes into a final, finished product. Of course operation costs are a big part of where Kickstarter money goes, where the hell else does it go? My objection to some Kickstarter products is that they basically just fund something perpetually without starting something (like PA) or they're more about "hipster welfare" (not to lean too heavily on the phrase though before anyone shoots me!) where we fund somebody's life because they don't want to work while they make Puzzle Boggle Blaster 2.

If anything, they act as living examples as to why corporations give flat, canned responses.

Indeed. We might wish for a more relatable response from large publishers, any sign that they're human beings and not our robot overlords, but representatives trained in dealing with the public exist for a reason.

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."

It was very well received on the 360 (at least by the people who got to play it), so yea I'm gonna definitely be picking this up. As for Phil Fish, sure he might be a pretentious little hipster, but then again aren't we all? :P

It doesn't matter if the platform is 'closed' or however you want to call it. Yes, its easier to develop for a single constant platform but that doesn't make logical bugs any less likely. If there is a bug in the code that occurs when only a certain set of circumstances occur this is nothing to do with the hardware or the platform it's running on.

I say this as a developer myself. Albeit not a games developer, the principle is the same.